Order Entry Tools

For

Futures DayTraders

(and maybe stocks also)

Order Entry Tools for Futures DayTraders

• If you are a daytrader, especially in Futures, how you place and

manage your orders is crucial to your success.

• You must be BOTH fast and accurate.

• Trade Management can be the difference between profits and losses,

between big gains and small gains, between small losses and large

losses.

• You need to be able to scale in, scale out, place stops and targets

with a single click.

Let‟s look at several ways to place your orders

Standard Broker Order Window

• Requires “fill in the blanks” information. (many if you do anything

other than a market order)

• Can place actual order with one click if disable Trade Check (“Are

you sure you want to do this?”) screen

• Requires you to think about your trades well in advance.

• Order types are usually quite limited

• Works fine for swing or position trading…Daytrading…not so well

Fidelity Active Trader Pro Standard Order Window

• One Click Order Entry for Stocks (after you set everything up!)

• Minimal Order Types supported (Market, Limit, Stop Loss, Stop Limit, Trailing Stop).

• Many Fields to fill out prior to placing the order.

• Fine for swing or postion trading…. But…..

• Very difficult to work this in a fast moving market daytrading

Most Brokers Standard Order Entry Windows are Functional but Primitive

• Modifying orders is also complex… Must do a Cancel and Replace…..More Clicks

Fidelity Active Trader Pro Conditional Order Window

• If one wishes OCO (brakets) or OTO (auto target or stop), order screen gets

MUCH more complicated

• E.g. All this must be filled out to do a bracket order!

Interactive Brokers Standard Order Window

1. Click the ASK price to create a BUY order, the BID price to create a SELL order

2. In the Type field select LMT as the order type

• Type field has many many order options

3. In the Lmt Price field, enter the price at which you want the order to execute

4. To transmit the order, click the “T” in the Status field.

• Very functional, but way too slow for Daytrading.

To Create a Limit Order

Interactive Brokers Book Trader (DOM)

1. Click the Bid Size or Ask Size at a certain price level in the ladder and the order

is transmitted instantaneously.

DOM‟s (Depth Of Market) are the standard order tool for futures

Interactive Brokers Book Trader Advanced Mode (DOM)

• With this screen you can now

scale in, scale out, set up target

exits and stop

losses, etc.

• To Modify you can Drag the

suborders up and down with

your mouse

A Little Better

Each new Order column can contain up

to 4 elements:

* The parent Order (LMT)

* The Target Limit order (TLMT) - this is

the limit order created as part of a

bracket order.

* The Stop order (STP)

* The stop limit (SLMT)

NinjaTrader

• One Click Order Entry and Trade Management system for Futures,

Stocks, Forex

• Needs Data feed (your Broker, eSignal, etc).

• Can have a backup data feed in case the primary goes down.

• Orders and trade management occur in Ninja and are routed to your

broker

• Advanced Trade Management

• Extensive charting and reporting tools

• Multiple ways to enter orders… SuperDOM, Charts, Basic, FX Pro

A Tool Giving Futures Traders a BIG Advantage

Ninja Trader SuperDOM

• Single click order entry and modification

• Highly visual order and position display

• Many user controlled display options such as price

rows, colors, and more

• Concurrent use in the same or different markets and

in both live and simulation mode

• Quick order entry, exit, and scaling buttons

• Intelligent bracketed OCO orders on entry and while

scaling in/out

NinjaTrader Advanced Trade Management (ATM)

Now we‟re talking!

Trader can set up rules and conditions for semi-automated trade

management using user defined strategy templates. These allow

NinjaTrader to think like you but ask much faster.

ATM will work on both the SuperDOM and the Chart Trader

Advanced Trade Management (ATM)

· Auto submit stop and target orders

· OCO (one cancels other) bracket orders

· Automatic multi-step trail stops

· Automatic break even stop loss

· Volume-based simulated stop loss

· Run long and short at the same time

· Reduces stress and emotion

· FIFO preservation

Ninja Trader Advanced Trade Management (ATM) - 1

Automated Stop Loss and Profit

Target Order Submission

Define how you will exit your trade by

creating templates for automatic

submission of stop loss and profit target

orders. Your strategy will execute and start

submitting exit orders once your entry

order is partially filled.

OCO (One Cancels the Other) Orders

A strategy will not only submit your stop

loss and profit target brackets it will

manage the relationship between them. If a

profit target order is filled, the paired stop

loss will automatically cancel.

Scale in or out of a strategy and all stop

loss and profit target orders are updated

to reflect the changed strategy position

size. Increase the order size of your

second profit target and your first profit

target order size is automatically

decreased.

NinjaTrader Advanced Trade Management (ATM) - 2

Automated Breakeven Stop Loss

Auto breakeven allows you to set a profit

condition that will trigger NinjaTrader to

automatically adjust your stop loss order to a

breakeven price. Optionally, you can also assign

an offset value that will subtract or add to your

breakeven price with the latter used to cover

commission costs for a true break-even

Automatic Trailing Stops

Industry standard trail stops either stop

you out too quickly or, give back too

much profit. NinjaTrader‟s Auto Trail

system was designed to give you the

power and flexibility to intelligently trail

your profits. Since no two markets trade

alike, you can set up custom auto trail

strategies that take into account the

„wiggle‟ factor of different markets thus

avoiding pre-mature stop outs. Create

auto trail strategies that are liberal at

the early stages of your trade and

automatically tighten up as the trade

goes into your favor.

NinjaTrader Advanced Trade Management (ATM) - 3

Volume Based Simulated Stop

Loss Orders

Ever have your stop loss order trigger by

a single tick only to watch the market

immediately bounce and trade to your

profit target without you?

With volume based simulated stops, a

NinjaTrader first feature, the triggering of

your stop loss order will be delayed until

such time that support or resistance is

breached based on your user defined

volume condition.

FIFO (First In First Out) Preservation

Limit orders are filled according a principle

called FIFO. This means orders ahead of you in

the queue get filled first. Whenever possible,

NinjaTrader will preserve your limit orders

position in the queue.

Increase the size of an order, NinjaTrader will

simply submit an additional order for the

difference in size which results in two orders.

NinjaTrader‟s order entry displays provide you

with a consolidated view of all orders resting at

the same price.

When reducing the size of an order, NinjaTrader

will amend or cancel the newest orders first. This

may sound straightforward and obvious but it‟s

not, and only NinjaTrader gives you this trading

edge.

NinjaTrader Advanced Charting with Order Entry

Charting Capabilities

• Flexible chart styles and intervals

• Candlestick, OHLC, Line on Close

and HiLo chart styles

• Tick based bar intervals

• Time based bar intervals - Sec, Min,

Daily, Weekly, Monthly and Yearly

• Custom user defined interval

compression (55 Tick, 30 Seconds

etc…)

• Extensive indicator library

• Real-time and End-of-Day

• Chart futures, forex and equities

• Develop custom indicators

• Rich set of interactive drawing tools

• Broad data feed support

Visualization

• Optionally display trades, orders and open

positions

• Visually customize grid lines, colors, fonts and

indicators

• Automated strategy execution markers and

trade lines

• Chart templates

• Visually customize all chart draw objects

• Global cross hair and window linking

Trade Directly Within the Charts• Easily enter, modify and cancel orders

• Visualization of all orders, fills and positions

• Manage trades using NinjaTrader‟s Advanced Trade Management

Chart Trading with NinjaTrader

Buy Sell Buttons – One Click

Reverse Position

Close all Positions Immediately

Current Day‟s P&L (If Flat),

Else, Current Trade P&L

Qty for Next Entry

ATM (Active Trade Management)

Strategy selection

Current Bid/Ask

Place Your Orders Right off the Charts!

NinjaTrader Chart Example

Placed Buy Limit

below Mkt by

right-clicking

on Chart

Price retraces,

Order filled…

4 Point Target

And 4 Point

Stop Loss

Orders

Automatically

placed based on

your ATM

Strategy

NinjaTrader Chart Example-Cont‟d

Price moved higher,

moved Stop loss up

with mouse by clicking

on Stop and dragging

higher thus locking in

a profit.

Trade stalled near end of day…

Exited manually with 2 point profit

by hitting “Close” Button.

That button closed the trade, and

cancelled all other outstanding

Orders.

Total Profit = 2 pts x 4 Contracts x

$20/Point = $160

NinjaTrader

Reporting

Ninja provides superb

reports on various time

frames. This can help

you improve your

results.

This is a one day

summary.

NinjaTrader Reporting - 2

This is a detailed summary of all trades for one day.

NinjaTrader Chart Trading – Try it

Ninja is Free to try. You don‟t pay until you execute live trades.

Download it.

Connect to a data source (eSignal or your broker if broker supports)

Set up Sim 101 account and paper trade to learn the program and

make a purchase decision.

Note: some brokers (IB for sure) also have a paper trade account

that you could connect to instead of the Sim 101

Listen to on line seminars during the week to learn how to use.

Don Miller‟s Keys to the Castle

Market Bias is King. Just this one little concept can turn your whole trading

career around and make consistent profitability possible.

Outliers are the keys to the castle.In poker, it's usually best to play conservative until you get a hand where the

probabilities are strongly in your favor. When trading, it's usually the same. You need

to wait until the odds are strongly in your favor, and then go in heavy. Unfortunately,

those conditions may exist only 2 to 3 times per day and only in windows of a few

seconds where you can get in at the right odds.

You add to your winners. Try to turn each and every trade that goes in your favor into

an outlier. Get as much out of each trade as you can. Inverse applies to trades going

against you. Limit your losses to the best of your ability by knowing you're wrong and

scratching before the market proves you're wrong.

At the end of the day, 1 or 2 outlier trades can make up for every missed opportunity

or good trade gone bad. And those become outlier days. And those lead to outlier

weeks. Pretty soon, you don't have to worry about being right 70+ percent of the time.

You take all that stress of "being right" off your shoulders and that in turn makes it

easier to scratch a trade that's lost its premise. I no longer think that it "may come

back so I don't have to take the loss" or "just try to get out here on this limit!" Who

cares, scratch it. Next bus is coming. It's a heck of a lot easier to come back from a

$200 loss versus a $2000 loss.

More Don Miller on Outlier Trades

The concept of outliers is critical.

In my view, and in terms of trade population, optimal trading is all

about 50% modest wins, 30% small losses, 15% home runs, and 5%

bonehead moves.

Yet in terms of net trading results, the 15% home runs will often

exceed the 50% modest wins.

And it doesn't matter whether you're talking about a trading day, week,

month, year, or career, as the impact is the same. The same is of

course true in spades in Poker.